Consultant Rivalry Led to Lie, Rollins Says : Politics: In deposition, he swore that he fabricated story about suppressing black vote. He says he intended to confuse opponent James Carville.

In a deposition that offers an eerie window on modern American politics, Republican political consultant Edward J. Rollins has sworn that “psychological warfare” with another political consultant led him to “fabricate” a story of paying to suppress black voter turnout in the New Jersey governor’s race. But he admitted that he did discuss such an effort in general terms with a campaign aide, although he has no idea if it was carried out.

The former campaign director for Ronald Reagan and Ross Perot said that he has “thought of putting a gun to my head” since the controversy broke during a recent breakfast interview with political reporters in Washington.

“The bottom line is, I said two minutes of words that I wish and I will wish for the rest of my life I could take back,” Rollins told a group of 11 Democratic and Republican party representatives in connection with a lawsuit by Democrats to overturn the New Jersey election.

“There was no evidence, there was no direction that we ever went to a black church and said anything about these kinds of things. There was no evidence that we ever attempted to suppress the vote. There is no evidence that we ever attempted to buy off their (the Democratic) organization,” Rollins said in the 300-page deposition released late Friday by the Democratic National Committee.

Rollins, consultant to victorious GOP candidate Christine Todd Whitman, said that he lied to reporters at a post-election round-table interview Nov. 9 because he wanted to engage in “a sort of psychological warfare” with prominent Democratic consultant James Carville, who worked for incumbent Gov. James J. Florio and is a key adviser to President Clinton.

“There was a subset game going on . . . Carville/Rollins, the super-consultant game,” Rollins said.

Describing a life of work, celebrity, dashing from national television appearance to television appearance to power dinners with lawmakers and journalists, Rollins said he intended that “when this came out in the political community”--that he had helped Whitman win by suppressing black voter turnout--”that the next time I went against Carville . . . that (Democrats) would basically be running around worrying about all this kind of crap. It was one-upmanship, and it backfired.”

Rollins added that when he realized reporters were going to make a bigger story of this than he expected, he told additional lies to make them think it was less important.

New Jersey Democratic State Chairman Raymond J. Lesniak said that his party intends to continue its civil suit but he acknowledged, “There is no question Ed Rollins did not give us a smoking gun.”

Republican lawyers said Rollins’ deposition should put the matter to rest. “In light of Mr. Rollins’ sworn testimony, there is no good-faith reason for pursuing this thing further,” said John P. Lacy, special counsel to the New Jersey Republican Party.

In his testimony, Rollins did acknowledge having a conversation with Whitman volunteer Lanna Hooks about the state of the campaign in the black community.

He said Hooks warned him that black ministers supporting Whitman were under “terrible pressure” from the Florio campaign that funds would be “cut off for day care centers, things that the Democratic Party sponsors, crack programs and what have you.”

“I said, ‘Lanna, go back to these people and continue the dialogue and tell them, as far as we’re concerned, we want to help them. Whatever their favorite charity may be, there are other ways of helping them besides state funding that Florio has.’ But I didn’t authorize her to commit resources, and she as an attorney wouldn’t ask for that. All I did was give her some suggestions, and I said, ‘Tell them if they don’t go up to the pulpit and preach against us on Sunday, we’d be way ahead of the game.’

“The bottom line is, I didn’t want them to stand up on the pulpit and basically say, ‘You have a moral obligation to go vote with Jim Florio.’ That was the only conversation that I had with anyone relative to black ministers in this campaign,” Rollins testified.

“A couple days later in the hall, she said, ‘It seems to be helping somewhat. I’ve gone out and talked to some people,’ ” Rollins said.

What he had in mind, Rollins said, was assure these ministers “not to cave in, that there would be other ways to help” them. Beyond that, however, he had nothing specific in mind.

“I have no knowledge of what she did or didn’t do. I can only attest to the fact that (she’s) an attorney,” Rollins said.

In his interview, Rollins had suggested that about $500,000 was spent to discourage black ministers from rallying their congregations for Florio and to fund projects for those who did not.

In his testimony, Rollins decried the attention given political consultants and their handiwork. “The problem with politics today is people like Ed Rollins get far too much play, and I have sat here and created a national storm where millions of dollars of tax dollars are going to be wasted on a criminal investigation. . . . This was an inside the Beltway . . . game that I’ve become a victim of.”